Category Archive

Life

We launched as Offbeat Home in 2011, but it has become clear that the site is about much more. In 2013, we relaunched as Offbeat Home & Life, with an expanded focus on Relationships, Budget & Career, Travel, and Style. This is the category for the non-home/rest of life stuff!

Super comfy-comfs walking shoes for daily wear

YOU GUYS. I am fucking excited about this post today. As y’all probably know, I’ve been obsessing over wedding shoes on Offbeat Bride since George Bush was in office… but a reader recently requested a post of (get this!) comfortable walking shoes. WALKING SHOES! For daily wear! This is amazing, because here’s a little secret: I can’t really walk in heels. Platforms I can handle, but despite my love of pumps, I grew up barefoot and worked at a Birkenstock store in college and seriously? I can’t walk in heels.

Married student housing for college students is awesome and you should totally live there

I’m not sure who introduced the idea to us, but we happily discovered that our university offered inexpensive on-campus housing to married students and families. We checked out the apartments, got the details, and were sold: $400 rent for a tiny place only a five-minute bike ride from school? Yes.

I’m a grandma and I have a baby of my own: the other side of teen parenthood

When I think about being a grandma, I feel like I should be older, more patient, have money, be able to spoil him, take him places. Instead, I walk with him and his aunt to the park. I drag them to the library because “grandma loves books.” I play music loud in the car and plan my next tattoo. All things I guess grandma’s don’t do. Or maybe they do. I do anyway.

Stop hate-reading: save your soul with a browser-based URL blocker

You know you do it. You have those URLs that you save in your bookmarks for the websites you hate. You know you shouldn’t do it. You know your hate-reading actually supports the websites you loathe… but fuck. It’s so hard! Self-control, man. I don’t have it. Do you?

Celebrate 42: Throw this Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy birthday party

When I turned 42, since I was going to be the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything for a WHOLE year, I decided to throw a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy shindig. If you’re wondering what snacks to serve at your Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-themed party, here’s your answer…

Caroline Rothstein on feminism and bikini waxes

…Yet here I am, month in and month out, dropping my pants for a stranger, letting her slide hot, green, organic wax along my vulva, around my labia, and across my lower abdomen with a thick, pale wooden popsicle stick just so I can feel “clean.” How can I subject a part of my body with such a complicated narrative to this hedonistic ritual and still call myself a feminist?

How can I release my inner neat-freak and enjoy having people over?

My guy and I work from home — well, I work from home, he works from the shop in the barn behind our house, and it’s SUPER awesome. People drop by all the time, and it’s not unusual to have folks over 3-7 nights a week (people stay over 1-3 nights a week).

I come from a pretty traditional background and a clean freak mom so having an open house like this REALLY stressed me out, because I wanted the house to be clean and have snacks out etc. I’ve relaxed my standards significantly and now I’m wondering what kind of life-hacks I should be using to be prepared for guests?

Monsterously tart: Make a dessert that looks like Mike Wazowski

Mike Wazowski is the star of the children’s animation Monsters University and Monsters, Inc. This is how you can turn the lovable Mike Wazowski into a tart!